"The Hutton inquiry established in the public mind - beyond all question - the government's disingenuousness and deceit over the gravity of the threat posed by Iraq to the west. And then the Hutton report passed over, or ignored, or rather airily dismissed, all of this stuff. So let us help his lordship. Let us remind him of the salient facts established by his own inquiry but by which he seemed unimpressed, or maybe just bored."

"Firstly, the BBC was not merely justified in but should be congratulated upon broadcasting a story that was important, significant and in the public interest. Secondly, that the story was not merely fundamentally correct as it stood [when Andrew Gilligan broadcast it] on May 29, but has since been endlessly corroborated. The essence of Gilligan's story [was that] the prime minister and the prime minister's office felt that they could not go to war except on the issue of Saddam Hussein's preparedness to attack the west. And having decided upon this, they went about ensuring the public believed that Saddam was prepared and equipped to attack the west despite the considerable evidence to the contrary. In other words, [Tony Blair] led us to war on a false pretence. Only Lord Hutton seems unable to see this."

Paul Routledge Daily Mirror, January 29

"M'Lord Hutton has failed us. His establishment whitewash of wrongdoing in high places which caused a man to kill himself stinks to high heaven. He spent six months and millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money to find the prime minister, his cabinet and his odious spin doctors not guilty of anything. They done nuffink wrong. They was fitted up by the BBC. And this man is a judge? It makes me feel physically sick, like a victim of crime who knows that justice will never be done."

"We know from their own mouths, their emails and a mass of paper evidence that Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence conspired to stuff the weapons scientist Dr David Kelly. It beggars belief Lord Hutton could find these miscreants not guilty. The government will now say to demands for a public inquiry into the war: 'We have had an inquiry. It is time to move on.' That this argument is a fraud does not matter. Post-Hutton, it is a credible lie. Most will sigh in disbelief. Nothing shocks us any more. Mr Blair done nuffink. Alastair Campbell is a plaster saint. The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, is a man of the highest principle and I am the Count of Monte Cristo."

Max Hastings Daily Mail, January 29

"A Martian reading Hutton might suppose that Mr Campbell was a parfit gentil knight; while the BBC was a mere den of vipers, where professional ethics and responsible supervision are unknown. The truth, of course, is the other way around. It has been Mr Campbell's function to serve as a professional deceiver in the service of Mr Blair. Who seriously doubts that the BBC, for all its faults, is a great force in the struggle for truth? Yet today, thanks to Lord Hutton, Mr Campbell bestrides the prostrate form of the corporation, humbled as never before in its history."

"Mr Blair and his colleagues have been acquitted on the charges they so deftly formulated against themselves. In the minds of the public, however, the accused leave the dock with stains on their character that no amount of judicial laundering can remove."

Germaine Greer Times, January 29

"For the BBC to let Gilligan run with a story that had not been verified has now become the crime - a crime committed by news media every day. It's win-win-win for the government, or it would be if we had been fooled by the Hutton inquiry in the first place."

"The Hutton inquiry, with its huge deployment of forensic intelligence, deflected the energy that should have rammed down the Blair government's throat the only question that really matters: why did Britain court complicity in the 'shock and awe' campaign that unleashed massive violence against the civilian population of Iraq?"

Janet Daley Daily Telegraph, January 29

"Lord Hutton based his inquiry on an assumption that should always have been beyond controversy: that the charges made by Gilligan were profoundly serious allegations that went to the heart of the government's integrity that the government was effectively being accused of having taken the country to war - and lost British lives - on the basis of a lie."

"This is an imputation of such enormity that anyone making it in the public arena - let alone the most prestigious news-gathering organisation in the world - should have done so only after the most rigorous process of verification. By refusing to retract or offer an apology the BBC put itself in a position that was logically and professionally indefensible. By galvanising its board of governors into unstinting support it made a travesty of its own self-regulation. Journalistic standards and procedure are relatively easy things to improve. You install rigorous checks and enforce discipline. What is harder to change are institutional smugness and self-regard. Somebody from outside the cosy circle needs to take a hard look at the BBC."

Patrick O'Flynn Daily Express, January 29

"It would be easy to conclude, on the back of Lord Hutton's devastating findings, that the BBC should simply be closed down. Given that organisation's lofty disdain for those of us working in the popular press, it is also very tempting to do so. Its endemic, systemic arrogance and laughable presumption of superiority lay behind almost all of the errors highlighted by Lord Hutton."

"While the BBC clings to the licence fee and to an outdated notion of its inherent 'specialness', humility will never be one of its watchwords. The time has come to cut the strings from Auntie's apron and send her out to take her chances with the rest of the commercial world."

Nick Cohen New Statesman, January 31

"Lord Hutton wasn't interested in finding out. You can't accuse him of covering up. The level of disclosure the Hutton inquiry obtained astonished those of us used to the constipated officialdom of secrecy-bound Britain. But his reach wasn't matched by the narrowness of his conclusions."

"Lord Hutton's report isn't a whitewash and he didn't pull his punches when the BBC was within striking distance. The BBC's claim that Mr Blair lied was immensely serious, and Lord Hutton has exposed its shaky foundations. But his interpretation of his terms of reference excluded pretty much everything else that mattered."

Donald Macintyre Independent, January 29

"In the Manichean world of the media-political complex, this was a zero sum game; for politicians and many commentators, either the BBC or the government had to be right. Lord Hutton, it was thought, might criticise both sides, even if the BBC came off worse. Instead, he has judged the matter almost like a civil case, coming down on one side against the other. All this should caution the Blair administration against too triumphalist a response."

"In the animalistic world of the political cockpit, the totality of Mr Blair's triumph can't be gainsaid. The contrast between Labour excitement and Tory glumness in the Commons [on Wednesday] said it all. The prime minister has had an incredible week, which makes it infinitely likelier that he will lead Labour into the next election than not. But the report still leaves some big unanswered questions - not all of them confined to the larger issues about WMD and the run-up to war in Iraq, which were judged beyond Lord Hutton's remit. That, if anything, should now caution the government against hubris, as it contemplates the clear uplands that seem to beckon so invitingly between now and the next general election."